


Play Me (Like a Love Song)

by arthur_pendragon



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Arthur is Not a Prostitute, Blow Jobs, Coming of Age, Crush at First Sight, Dirty Talk, Enthusiastic Consent, First Time, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Kissing, M/M, Merlin is Not a Prostitute Either, Nipple Play, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Prostitution, Rimming, Shy to Shameless, Underage - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 18:57:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20030734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arthur_pendragon/pseuds/arthur_pendragon
Summary: “Good evening,” he says far too politely to the brothel-keeper, a man who calls himself Arthur and has golden hair that glints in the lantern-light. His voice quavers as he says, “I’m here to — to be with a woman.”





	Play Me (Like a Love Song)

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for [this prompt](https://kinksofcamelot.livejournal.com/1806.html?thread=588814#t588814) at Kinks of Camelot.
> 
> Ages are unspecified in the fic. Prompt called for 16yo!Merlin, so you can imagine him as that or 17 or 18 or older, up to you. Arthur I imagined to be in his 20s. Title from Bloom - Troye Sivan
> 
> Posting this at 4:30 in the morning argh what is rest/health/sleep/happiness

Much, much later, Merlin will wake up and wonder if everything that happened was a dream.

* * *

“Good evening,” he says far too politely to the brothel-keeper, a man who calls himself Arthur and has golden hair that glints in the lantern-light. His voice quavers as he says, “I’m here to — to be with a woman.”

It must be obvious that he’s… inexperienced. He’s just come of age, had the requisite celebrations back home in Ealdor, but it’s his friends’ fault (Will especially) that the following month he’s gone and lied to his mum and sneaked his way into Engerd, two villages over. Now he’s standing in the entryway to a house of ill repute, blushing under the gaze of the handsomest man he’s ever seen. He’s going to kick them all when he gets back, _right_ up the arse, or between the legs where it’ll hurt most and deter them from frequenting whorehouses themselves.

Arthur is smiling as he looks at Merlin, so at ease as he leans against the jamb with a hand on his waist. “Be with a woman, hm?”

“Not really,” Merlin sighs, sagging. “My mates’ve forced me to do this. They think it’s a near crime that I’ve come of age but haven’t slept with anyone yet.”

Arthur laughs, and the sound is so charming that Merlin, despite himself, wants immediately to hear more of it. “I dare say I have to agree with them; I wouldn’t be a very good souteneur if I didn’t, yes?”

“I haven’t got a lot of money,” Merlin says, and flinches as high-pitched moans float over to them from the upper floors. Arthur looks unperturbed. Of course: he’s used to it. “Is that much too blunt of me? Am I being rude?”

“Not at all.” Arthur’s lazy grin confirms it. His jawline could cut glass, Merlin thinks, with a pang that’s not quite envy. His eyes are ink in the darkness of night — what colour must they be really?

Merlin should probably feel patronised by Arthur’s treatment of him so far. He should draw himself up indignantly and use this as an excuse to back out of the dare his friends set him.

He doesn’t even consider it. “D’you have anyone who’d be willing to show me the ropes?”

“Ropes are a _very_ adventurous choice, especially for your first time,” Arthur says with a wink.

“What?” Merlin yelps, blood draining from his face. “No, I just — I was just — oh, God —” But Arthur is laughing again, and all the blood rushes back into Merlin’s cheeks. “Stop taking the piss,” he cries, riled _now_.

“You’re making it awfully easy to,” Arthur answers, standing aside to let Merlin in, finally.

The establishment is much cleaner than Merlin had expected, not that he’d know what such places are usually like. He’s led a most sheltered life in the hamlet that is Ealdor, and all his knowledge of indecent things is mostly hearsay that his mum would twist his overly-large ears for knowing.

There’s a fire burning in a hearth to one side, flames flickering and rising and falling. The room is quite bare — no furniture save for a few chairs and a table in a corner of the room, and a cursory tavern setup in another; in case some of the less charitable guards decide to make trouble, Merlin supposes. This wouldn’t be where all the, the _sex_ happens, of course.

“New patron?” comes a woman’s voice. Merlin whips around, nervousness blatant in every line of his trembling body, and spies the most attractive woman he’s ever met descending the staircase. Words flee him in the face of her allurement. Her clothing is modest, however, not at all the way he’d expected. No dipping necklines revealing a provocative amount of cleavage, no overdone maquillage. Indeed, the lady giving him a keen once-over could’ve been a high-ranking noblewoman, perhaps even royalty.

“H’lo, Morgana. This boy here is,” Arthur says, dropping a heavy hand on Merlin’s shoulder, “possibly the most unversed customer we’ve ever entertained.”

“I’m not a boy anymore, and I have a name,” Merlin mutters, unable to resist snapping back at this man (beautiful himself), as if they’ve become friends in the short moments they conversed at the doorstep and Merlin outed himself as a novice in the interests of complete and honest stupidity.

“You’ve yet to share it with me so far.”

“Merl—Falc—Wren. Call me Wren.”

“Ought to call you Avian to save time,” Arthur snorts. Warmth seeps from his hand into Merlin, who can’t resist leaning just a little into his touch. “Wren here’d like to lie with a woman who could, and I quote, _show him the ropes_.”

“Bold choice.” Morgana smirks. Arthur laughs as Merlin reddens once again, and allows Merlin to smack his hand away in a fit of pique.

“Can you or can’t you?” snaps Merlin. “I have the money required.” Procured from the coffers of Asher, Simeon, Charlie, and William, who deserve to lose all their money anyway.

“Of course we can,” answers Morgana sharply, and takes a quick look at the pouch Merlin holds out. “But not for _that_ little.”

Merlin’s heart plummets to the ground.

“What?” he stammers, bravado dissipating. “Really?” It’s all they all had, pooled together. He pays the barest attention to Arthur beside him grabbing the pouch and rifling through it, counting the gold coins Merlin had hidden under his tunic the entire trip here.

“That’s hardly enough for ten minutes with our cheapest, and I’m sure not even an untried lad such as you would be that quick. I’m sorry, my love.” Sympathy from the owner of a whorehouse. Just what had his life come to?

Merlin scrambles to recover from this blow. “Any other place you could rec—recommend?”

“His mates are leaning on him,” clarifies Arthur, shoving the clinking pouch back at Merlin. It drops listlessly into his hands, useless. “It’s the reason he’s here. He doesn’t actually want to do anything.”

“We’re the only establishment of our kind in Engerd, Wren,” says Morgana, but seems in no hurry to toss Merlin out on his ear. In fact, she’s steering him to the table. “Sit, you’re _shivering_; how cold is it outside? I’ll bring you a good meal for that money, and you can go back to your friends and tell them you were had by Morgana Gorlois, the loveliest courtesan this side of Albion.” She winks and leaves the room.

Merlin chokes. Morgana _Gorlois_ — that’s — she’s —

“Wasn’t the king’s ward supposed to be communing with the druids in Northumbria or someplace?” he asks in a horrified whisper to Arthur, who’s sat down beside him. Perhaps too close, for their arms and knees are brushing together under the table and his nose is mere inches away from Arthur’s if he turns. Merlin should move away, but he doesn’t want to, at all, and he’s not going to think about why. “I thought you’d have turned her in —”

“Not everyone is a fan of the king of Camelot’s draconian laws on sorcery,” Arthur whispers back baldly, as if that’s all he’s willing to say on the matter. “Ascetir’s borders are safe and Uther wouldn’t come after her here, not even with the reputation she’s trying to build up for herself. _Loveliest courtesan this side of Albion_, my arse.”

“She’s not a…?”

“No, she’s the main proprietress,” Arthur says. “I run the place only in a manner of speaking; as the face of the operation and the man who keeps some of the rowdier customers in check.”

Merlin nods, distracted by the liquid light in Arthur’s eyes. He still can’t figure out what colour they are.

Arthur smells of cinnamon and clove. Merlin possibly wants to lick up the side of his neck, behind his ear, and confirm it. Eyes half-shut, he breathes in again, unconsciously listing sideways, when with a jerk he realises —

“You’re _Crown Prince Arthur Pendragon_!” The rumours had reached Ealdor, of course, of the Camelot king’s ward herself secretly being a sorcerer, and the crown prince eloping with her so he could marry her and protect her from his father’s wrath. How had Merlin not twigged? Had his lu—lust, his _concupiscence_ addled his brain?

Arthur frowns at him. “Not since I relinquished my right to the throne, but did you not cotton on earlier?” The frown melts into a wicked grin. “Are the sounds from upstairs distracting you, perchance?” As if on cue, there are more sighs and groans heard, and Merlin is reminded keenly that this is very much not an inn and the man next to him is not just a handsome stranger, not anymore.

Not the sounds that are distracting me, Merlin wants to say. He shrugs instead.

There’s silence for a while. Arthur doesn’t move away; Merlin gets the oddest feeling that he’s being stared at by the crown fucking prince of Camelot, but he’s too busy staring in turn at the grooves and whorls in the table, blushing at the creaking of the beds and the _noises_. Morgana’s taking her sweet time with the promised dinner.

“Free,” Arthur says, all of a sudden, and Merlin jumps about a foot in the air.

“What?”

“I’ll do you for free,” he repeats, voice low and rough, and Merlin wouldn’t have minded it earlier but this is much too crude language coming from a prince, there are better ways to go about this sort of thing and this is just a pointless ramble he’s going on to avoid confronting the knowledge that the dreamy souteneur of the sole brothel in Engerd who’s also a fucking prince just propositioned him, and is that Morgana he hears —

“Here you go,” Morgana says cheerily, bursting into the room and setting a tray full of food down in front of Merlin. “What were you two talking about?”

“I’ve offered to fuck him, no charge.”

Merlin chokes, and instead of water goes for the soup, shovelling it down in order not to respond. It scalds his tongue but he stifles the yelp of pain that arises.

“Have you, now? In those words?” Morgana asks. She doesn’t seem to have a problem with it; she actually sounds _amused_. Aren’t they together? Wouldn’t she loathe hearing her husband having it off with some strange boy? Why are they running a _brothel_ together? What has Merlin stumbled onto?

“Yes, and now he’s paralysed with shock and horror.”

“Not horror,” Merlin almost shouts, having to unfreeze to explain himself, unable to stand the thought of Arthur thinking he’s _repulsed_ by him. “Just shock.”

“Why?” Arthur snags a bit of Merlin’s bread and dips it in the soup. Merlin, with none of the poise of an intellectual noble and all of that of a gormless lout, watches.

“Well,” he stutters when time passes and the odd glances he’s getting from both of them increase in frequency, “You’re both _married_, aren’t you? Why would you want to…?”

Now it is Arthur’s turn to choke. Morgana bursts into peals of laughter. The sex sounds above pause momentarily, then resume with vigour. Multiple people together? Multiple people but in twos and perhaps threes? Merlin tears his mind away from the visuals that the sounds conjure.

“You’re… not?” He asks weakly.

Arthur, furiously scraping the bottom of the soup bowl with Merlin’s spoon, shakes his head and grimaces at the mere thought. Merlin doesn’t know why he’s so relieved to see that expression.

Fuck it. He knows exactly why. Deep breath, Merlin.

He turns to Arthur, letting their knees jostle each other and their calves line up. Arthur raises questioning eyes to him. “Okay, then,” Merlin says, “I’ll do it if you’re really offering.”

Arthur stills. Then he grins, the smile slowly spreading across his face, and knocks Merlin’s foot with his. Fuck, he’s so beautiful. Merlin aches to think that someone who _glows_ like Arthur just volunteered to take up with an ordinary nobody like him.

Morgana’s laughter peters out, and she fixes Merlin with a sly gaze. “Then I welcome you, Wren, to my humble premises. I hope you’ll enjoy your time with Arthur, however long you decide you want him.” She brings out a key from one of the many folds in her dress and throws it to Arthur, who catches it without looking.

Arthur stands abruptly and goes to the bar. Slams down a small glass of some liquid or other (it’s impossible to see which from this distance) and then leaves the room without even a glance at Merlin.

“Last door down the corridor, on the left,” Morgana says, with a saucy wink that staggers Merlin; this is the king’s runaway ward who has magic (just like Merlin but he can’t even think about that right now), and_ she just winked at him._

* * *

He pushes open the door, the texture of the unvarnished wood like sandpaper under his anxious palm. He ignored all the noises emanating from the rooms he passed on the way here; wondered, for a nervous second, if he’d be joining in soon. His heart is hammering not two inches under his skin, and he thinks it hasn’t really hit him yet, that he’s about to have sex for the first time in his life. It’s a momentous occasion. Probably. He’s barely had a wank before. And it isn’t even with the type of person he’d been here to have the sex with. It’s a man. With a cock, like him.

“Come in already,” comes Arthur’s voice, and like a siren’s lure it draws Merlin inside, right to the bed, which Arthur’s sitting on the edge of. It’s pitch-dark despite the moonlight entering through the window opposite to the door, and Merlin can only just make out Arthur’s silhouette. There’s an unlit lantern on a table, along with a bottle of something viscous.

“Are you cold?” asks Arthur. Merlin shakes his head, aware that he himself is perfectly illuminated by the moon.

“Nervous?”

“A bit,” Merlin confesses.

“Do you really want this? I’m happy to just have a kip with you here if you’re scared.”

“’M not scared. I want this. You. I want you.” And _fuck_ if saying the words out loud didn’t just make Merlin twitch in his pants.

“D’you want to start?”

Merlin bites his lip and sits down next to the most beautiful man he’s ever seen.

“Fuck,” Arthur sighs, reaching out with a hand and pressing at Merlin’s lip so it escapes from under his teeth, glistening, probably. “I’ve wanted to kiss that sinful mouth of yours since you said _good evening_.”

“Do it,” Merlin says, eager. Told in clear words that he’s wanted, he’s soaring high. But he stays still and waits for Arthur to lean into him. Arthur knows what Merlin’s doing, if the way he’s looking at him is any indication.

“May I kiss you?” Arthur whispers, warm breath on Merlin’s chin.

Merlin closes his eyes and nods. He might end up _thanking_ his friends for this.

* * *

Arthur’s lips are dry, catching and slipping against Merlin’s. For all his confidence and attitude earlier, he seems to be just as hesitant. Merlin inhales. This is his first kiss. It sends bolts of lightning down his body, hardening his nipples and his cock, making his toes curl. How is just a kiss making him feel so good?

Gently, he runs a hand through Arthur’s beautiful hair, feeling more than hearing him sigh into the kiss. It’s still so chaste. Is Merlin a slut if he wants more already?

He presses his mouth harder against Arthur; such a novice.

“Teach me,” he whispers. “Please.”

“All in good time,” Arthur mouths back, still kissing Merlin with only the gentlest touches, keeping the rest of himself away. They’re leaning into each other, like innocent lovers by a brook. Merlin wishes he could separate from his body and see himself and Arthur together. What must he look like, all ungainliness and inexperience, pressed up against — and he would never get over this — the crown prince of Camelot?

A hot, wet swipe across the seam of Merlin’s mouth jolts him out of his half-reverie, brings him firmly back down to reality. Merlin shudders and parts his lips, shyly touches his tongue, still sensitive from the scalding it received earlier, to Arthur’s. It galvanises him; he clambers on top of Arthur, straddles him and winds his arms around his shoulders. Arthur more than welcomes the move — his hands fly from the mattress to Merlin’s waist, then slide down to his arse, grabbing handfuls of it as he deepens the kiss with more confident sweeps of his tongue into Merlin’s mouth. _God_.

Quickly it devolves into messy necking.

“Forgive me for my intemperateness,” Arthur murmurs, lingering over the edge of Merlin’s jaw. His voice is wonderfully deep; Merlin is happy to submerge himself in it. He can’t believe that before tonight, he had never once considered lying with a man, as Arthur is. Would he have responded so sensitively with, say, Morgana? There’s something about Arthur that reels Merlin in — not awe at who he is, not any sort of royal worship, but something about Arthur the person, the insouciant souteneur who saw something in Merlin in return.

“I _want_ you to invade me,” Merlin sighs.

“Filthy mouth. I shall plunder it,” promises Arthur, following it up with a contrarily-soft kiss, and Merlin, God help him, dissolves into _giggles_ at the language, collapsing lengthways onto the bed. Arthur sighs loudly and flops down on top of him, nipping and suckling at Merlin’s neck for every laugh that escapes him.

“Does that work on everyone else?” Merlin asks, enjoying being pinned by his heavy weight. He’s smiling. He hadn’t thought he would be smiling during his coupling tonight.

“I wouldn’t know,” responds Arthur. Merlin’s laughter peters out.

“What do you mean?”

Arthur parts Merlin’s shirt revers and refuses to look up from his careful survey of Merlin’s collarbones as he says, “As a rule, I do not assume the mantle of Cyprian for my establishment.”

Merlin nearly chokes. Of course he wouldn’t, would he? The (former) crown prince would not deign to be a common whore. “You’re doing this with me for free, so I don’t suppose you’re a Cyprian today, either,” he replies. This was not in the slightest what he had intended to say.

Arthur touches his lips to the hollow at the base of Merlin’s neck. Blinded by the moon in his eyes, Merlin can feel him smile.

“Fair enough.” Arthur sits up, straddling Merlin’s hips. With a slow, sinuous movement, he denudes himself of his tunic and drops the cloth to the side without a second thought. For a tense moment, he stares down at Merlin — even with him silhouetted, Merlin can sense the near-tangible gaze — and in the next leaves the bed to walk over to the lantern, deftly lighting it.

“I need you to see me,” he explains, voice low and hoarse.

Merlin certainly doesn’t mind. “Will you disarray me, too?” he requests, needlessly formal, turning his head to observe Arthur’s profile as the man pulls off his trousers and pants. He gulps as Arthur’s cock comes free of its confines, hard and long and thick. A rush of arousal washes over him; he wants Arthur inside him. Merlin needs Arthur’s cock inside him.

“How could I say no to such a plea?” A naked Arthur climbs back into bed, illuminated silver and gold by conflicting light. Merlin stretches his arms above his head, but Arthur is seemingly in no hurry. Achingly slow, he rucks Merlin’s shirt up, starting from the waist, keeping his hands from even brushing Merlin’s skin. Merlin shuffles towards Arthur’s hips involuntarily, attempting to help him along, but Arthur lowers more of his weight onto Merlin and immobilises him with his thighs.

“Beautiful,” rasps Arthur, as the hemline passes over Merlin’s chest to reveal his peaked nipples. “I — I must —” He swoops in to capture one in his mouth, and tugs. Merlin groans and curves his back upwards, scandalised that Arthur is treating his chest as he would a woman’s, but incomparably thrilled at the wet heat of Arthur’s suck. It feels — so good. So intolerably good. Merlin’s toes curl, and he feels incapable of doing anything save for lying there, gasping, and taking whatever Arthur gives him.

“So pretty,” Arthur breathes. Merlin thinks Arthur does not know himself. “If only you could see how they go red at the first touch. I _yearn_ to… oh, Avian.” His fingers make short work of Merlin’s other teat, teasing with brushes at first, then graduating to flicks. Before long, Merlin is squirming and moaning with abandon as Arthur pinches and plucks at him. The single-minded devotion of it is overwhelming, as if Arthur believes Merlin to be ambrosia. He rubs and presses an unyielding thumb across Merlin’s nipples, switching between his tongue and teeth and fingernails to reduce Merlin to a twitching, whining mess.

Merlin feels wetness dribble from his cock, pressure building and building in his lower abdomen. He can’t keep his hands up over his head anymore, so he seizes fistfuls of Arthur’s hair with them; urging him away or towards himself, he doesn’t know.

“I’m going to,” he tries, grinding up against Arthur’s nakedness. “Arthur —”

“Go on,” Arthur mumbles, suckling wetly at him with single-minded devotion. Merlin’s breath hitches in a sob; he loses his mind, coming untouched. He’s certain that he has never climaxed this intensely before.

His vision whites out.

* * *

What feels like hours later, Merlin recovers consciousness to to find himself shirtless but sheltered from the chill by Arthur.

“Hello, love,” Arthur says, right on cue, from somewhere near Merlin’s temple. “Are you all right?” Pliant and sated, with his chest pleasantly sore, Merlin hums and curls around the brilliant man who just brought him off in the most fantastic way. He’s sleepy now, and has no doubt that should he be left to himself, he will drift off. Arthur laughs lightly, and it is when his cock rubs up against Merlin’s clothed hip that Merlin realises that Arthur is still hard.

“I’m sorry,” he stammers, “I didn’t — I — you felt too good and I —”

“Silly thing,” Arthur murmurs, pressing kisses into his hair. “Haven’t you guessed what that did for my _amour propre_?”

Merlin tilts his head up and catches Arthur’s eye, smiling shyly. The lantern light is dimmer than before. How long was Merlin out? “You haven’t acquiesced to my request yet,” he says. “I came in my _pants_.”

“It was gratifying to watch, not least because I was the one who caused it.” Arthur leans in to kiss Merlin, sedulous and lush. Merlin immerses himself in the adoring kisses, surprised at how quickly he has got used to them, to Arthur being royalty; but he spares some brain function to inch his hand down to Arthur’s cock. Arthur huffs in startlement but continues to devour Merlin slowly, pushing his hips into Merlin’s palm.

“I want you,” Merlin whispers, once they withdraw for air. “Please, I want you inside me.”

Arthur inhales sharply. “Avian — you originally intended to lie with a woman. Do you really want me to fuck you like you’d have a woman? I’m unsure that you won’t regret it come morning.”

Merlin wonders if his unhappiness at those last few words is apparent on his face. It _had_ occurred to him that he could ask to be the one giving instead of receiving, and that if he did, Arthur would probably acquiesce. But he doesn’t want that. All he can think about is Arthur in him, surrounding him.

He is all too transparent, if Arthur’s answering exhale is any indication. He hasn’t grown any softer in Merlin’s hands, so Merlin takes it as a good sign. He pushes Arthur onto his back and stands up on the mattress — and pauses.

“Wait. Did you say all that because _you_ don’t want to fuck me?” he asks.

Arthur swallows and shakes his head. The action is strangely alluring.

“I want you more than anything,” he says, hoarse.

Merlin grins — Arthur grins back, both relieved — and gets rid of his remaining clothes. Arthur watches him avidly.

“Come here,” he breathes, beckoning with a raised hand. Merlin uses the support to kneel atop him, straddling his shoulders.

“If I may,” Arthur says, fitting his palms over Merlin’s arse and bringing his come-sodden cock and balls to his lips. Merlin goes liquid at the first swipe of Arthur’s tongue over the tip of his cock.

“Oh. _Oh_.” Can’t stop sliding more of himself inside Arthur’s wonderful, wonderful mouth. Arthur isn’t complaining, even though he has to crane his neck to make it work; he swallows Merlin down, lets him slip out, and then presses wet kisses all over his length, cleaning him of his come as he goes. When he begins to lave and suck on Merlin’s balls, Merlin _keens_. He has to hold on to the headboard in order to not collapse and stifle Arthur, and it’s only getting harder, in more ways than one.

Arthur pushes him further forward on his face, head dropping back onto the sole pillow on the bed, and Merlin is confused until — _fuck_.

“Oh, God, Arthur,” he cries, unable to help swivelling his hips and bearing down as Arthur firmly grips his arse and spreads his cheeks. He can’t look — if he looks down, he will see his own cock, slapping against Arthur. He’ll see those gorgeously-shaped eyes, open or closed, focused again. There will be sweat forming at Arthur’s temples, darkening his gold hair to brown. If he sees any of this, he will come instantly, and he mustn’t, he _mustn’t_, because Arthur’s tongue, circling his hole and dipping in, the fingers making their way inside, it all feels so divine that Merlin needs to make it last forever.

His knees hurt like hell, but he loses track of time, swaying on top of — fuck, the crown prince of Camelot. He keeps forgetting. It’s a good thing. He commits to memory the slaps of his thighs hitting his calves as he rides Arthur’s face, both of them humming and moaning as Arthur steadily eats him out and fucks him with his fingers at the same time, the _noises_, oh, God, Arthur gasping for breath every so often, and then resuming —

“Please,” he hears himself say, as if drunk on the pleasure, clinging as much as he can to the headboard. He is dripping wet now; Arthur’s dedication to nearly _killing_ Merlin on display. “Please, please fuck me. I need you. Please.”

Arthur groans and hefts Merlin onto the bed, rolling on top of him. Merlin stares at him; Arthur’s lips are red and swollen, and his mouth and chin glisten with spit.

“Did you like that, my Avian?” Arthur asks, dragging the back of his hand across his chin.

“You’ve no bloody idea,” Merlin replies, twining his arms round Arthur’s neck and kissing him soundly. Arthur smiles into the kiss. They snog for a short but sedate while, until Arthur gets off Merlin to fetch the vial he had seen earlier.

“Knees over my shoulders.” He returns to his previous position, pushing himself up with a hand beside Merlin’s head. Merlin obeys eagerly. His cock is leaking all over his stomach, and he feels like he’s going to come the minute Arthur is inside him, even if it hurts. He can’t wait. “You’re sure?” Arthur whispers.

“Shag me already, you dollophead,” Merlin retorts, laughing at the amused outrage on Arthur’s face.

“_Dollophead_?” Arthur laughs and uncaps the small vial one-handed, and pours its contents onto his hardness. Merlin cannot see what’s going on, bent in half as he is, but he can guess, hearing the wet sounds of Arthur spreading the oil around.

“Promise me you’ll tell me if you want to stop,” Arthur murmurs. Merlin clenches on instinct as Arthur nudges his hole. “Relax and bear down — good, like that. God, look at you, so greedy for me. Swallowing me up. So fucking tight. _Look_ at you.” He knows Merlin’s hurting, and he’s trembling with the effort to go slow, Merlin realises. For his sake. All for Merlin’s sake.

It strikes him again then, like a lightning bolt, that Arthur really did and does want ordinary, unexceptional Merlin. His heart swells to bursting.

“Arthur,” he says, full of emotion like he’s never been before, when Arthur’s fucked in and out of him a few times. “Arthur, go faster. Please.” God, what would all of Merlin’s mates say if they knew what he was doing? They would gape. They would wonder. They would envy him.

Arthur _quivers_. “Avian,” he grits out, as if it is taking all his self-control not to explode.

“Kiss me,” Merlin says, tugging him down, and Arthur gives in, then, speeding up. Merlin jolts as Arthur with his cock hits something absolutely brilliant inside him. God. Fuck. Holy mother of — oh, God. So good. So, so good. With his mouth busy pressed to Arthur’s, he can’t articulate how badly he wants Arthur to keep rubbing against that place but Arthur seems to guess, with the way he bends Merlin even further and pounds into him.

“Beautiful,” Arthur mumbles, heaving shuddering breaths with every thrust. “I’d keep you in here with me, all night long. I’d fuck you when I please. You’re so hungry for me, my Avian. Begging and moaning for me. You were so _painfully_ shy on the doorstep, weren’t you? Look at you now, so shameless for me. Taking me so well, even though it’s your first time.”

“You feel amazing,” Merlin slurs, licking at Arthur’s cherry-red lips, darker in the lantern light. “Always want to be stuffed with your cock.”

“When I say them it’s one thing, but you — you _can’t_ say things like that,” Arthur huffs, interlacing the fingers of one hand with Merlin’s. Merlin’s heart throbs at the thought that Arthur’s displeased, but — “Unless you want me to spend in you immediately, you aren’t allowed to be so lewd.”

“I’ll be as lewd as I like,” Merlin answers, half-incoherent and breathless, wondering if everyone in the whorehouse can hear them coupling. He oddly doesn’t mind if they can. “I’ll be Prince Arthur’s debauched whore.”

Arthur groans. “_Avian_. I’m close. Jerk your cock with the other hand.”

Merlin makes a split-second decision. “My name is Merlin,” he says, following Arthur’s command, and not five pulls later, he comes with a cry of Arthur’s name.

* * *

“Are you going to make a habit of falling unconscious every time?” is the first thing he hears when he opens his eyes, perhaps an hour or two later. Arthur’s handsome countenance fills his vision. He’s smiling. Merlin smiles back.

“Are you going to make a habit of always being the best shag I’ve ever had?” he retorts, noticing with a subtle touch or two that Arthur seems to have cleaned him up whilst he was out for the count. Warmth shoots up his spine and collects in his lungs. Perhaps he would be permitted to hold Arthur if he were to be brave enough to reach out.

Delightfully, he is.

Arthur lets Merlin cling to him. He buries his nose in Merlin’s hair, and runs a palm over his nipple. Merlin yelps at the soreness, but doesn’t recoil.

“You lied to me,” Arthur says by way of explanation. “_Mer_lin.”

“I didn’t think you would ask for my name, and I hadn’t prepared a pseudonym. You put me on the spot!”

“Oh, did I, _Mer_lin,” says Arthur, apparently taking undue pleasure in voicing the syllables. Merlin clings tighter to him, taking undue pleasure in hearing them.

“_Mer_lin.”

“Yes, _Ar_thur.”

“Feeling all right?”

Merlin peers up at Arthur, and can only really make out the curve of his mouth. “More than,” he says. “Although I wouldn’t mind an inspection to be certain. With your mouth again, if you like. And then your cock.”

“Rest assured that if you tried that line on anyone but me, you’d get laughed out the door.”

“All that matters to me is that it works on you,” says Merlin cheekily, and gets a temple kiss for his trouble.

The mood suddenly turns solemn as Arthur shuffles downwards and comes face-to-face with Merlin.

“I would like you to know,” he begins, looking anywhere but at Merlin, “that you have no reason to feel guilty should you decide never to return to Engerd after tonight.”

All of Merlin’s cheer drains away as reality comes knocking. “Oh,” he says. “Right. Yes.” Does Arthur want him gone? Is Arthur saying he doesn’t care about Merlin after all? Was this really a pity fuck? He makes to rise, heart on the floor.

“But if you do return at any point in the near or distant future,” Arthur continues, rushing over his words as if he’s read Merlin’s mind again, “You will always be welcome to share my bed.”

Merlin pauses, and takes a deep breath. It is surprisingly easy to conflate the suave gentleman who made a mess out of him with this awkward man, the real person behind the princely veneer.

“I know you had a royal upbringing, but you could have skipped all that nonsense and just said you want to see me again.”

Arthur stares at him in astonishment (that Merlin cannot observe but definitely can feel), and laughs.

“Very well. Do come see me again, Merlin.”

“Couldn’t keep me away if you tried,” Merlin mutters, kissing Arthur’s chin. “Now, I believe you have an inspection to perform.”

“_You’re_ very bossy all of a sudden,” Arthur remarks, dutifully making his way downwards anyway, stopping to kiss Merlin’s neck, his nipples, his navel.

“It’s such fun to order a prince around, wouldn’t you say?”

“Morgana would certainly agree.”

Merlin laughs, and Arthur laughs with him.

* * *

Much, much later, Merlin will wake up and wonder if everything that happened was a dream, but Crown Prince Arthur Pendragon of Camelot (“Former,” the man will say, rolling his eyes) will wake up next to him and prove otherwise.

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you liked this! I'd love to know if you did <3


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